Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum is pleased to present Contemporary Photography in China 2009 – 2014. Featuring photography, installation and video works by 52 artists/art collectors, the exhibition presented on the first floor of the museum intends to present a big picture of the development of contemporary photography in China. With a focus on photographic practice probing into the contemporary context, the exhibition investigates and encourages the exploration of the language and concept of photography, and therefore furthers the development of contemporary photography in China. Organized by Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum and CAFA Art Museum in collaboration with PHOTO SHANGHAI, the exhibition will open to the public on September 5 and run through October 15.

The exhibition consists of three sections: Boundary/Drift, Landscape/Everydayness and Society/Body. The curatorial team endeavors to highlight some prominent trends witnessed in the photography scene in China and to present a grand and yet detailed picture of it, making a review of the path it has undergone from 2009 to 2014. Certainly, the three sections alone cannot give a holistic picture of the development of contemporary photography in China. Moreover, the three sections are not separated. Instead, they are integrated in the practice of many photographers, making it hard to be categorized into one single section.

In the first section Boundary/Drift, while most artists lay an emphasis on experimenting with the ontology language of photography, some try to represent and reflect upon the reality through new media. In Landscape/Everydayness section, by probing into and reflecting upon spatial landscape, artists confront the diversity of reality and unbalance of different historical periods with great candidness in the form of photography; and in the meantime conduct a kind of subjective “viewing” experiment with the contemporary landscape. Body as a keyword of contemporary photography appears in a variety of forms in the Society/Body section. How can pressure imposed on human bodies act upon photography as a media and then be transformed into a more profound force to influence the body reality and social reality in the contemporary context? Such is a question that has intrigued artists for long. A special unit called “Civic Journalism” is launched within the third section. A review is made concerning the news pictures popular among social media since 2009. On the one hand, they are represented as a means of news production; and on the other hand, a dialogue is hereby constructed between the pictures and the practice of journalism presented in this section.

Established in 2008 and open to the public in 2010, Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai is committed to the promotion of Chinese contemporary art and the presentation of the trends and status quo of Chinese contemporary art. Contemporary Photography in China 2009 – 2014 intends to further the development of contemporary photography in China and present a big picture of the ongoing evolution of today’s photographic practice. The exhibition will run through October 15.